Social Media in the Workplace

Employees’ use of social media at work and outside of it has become a real — and important — concern for many employers. Take Justine Sacco for example, the PR executive who was fired from her job at InterActiveCorp for posting this tweet (which has since been deleted) before an 11-hour flight from London to Cape Town, South Africa.

Sacco only had about 200 followers before a story was published about the tweet, which ultimately gained a lot of attention. Twitter users also found more insensitive tweets on her profile, which led IAC to promptly fire her and later release a statement apologizing to the public.

Organizations need to consider ways in which employees’ social media use can impact them, especially if they are on company time. When not diligently managed, social media opens the door to numerous risks that a company may face like:

• Misuse of work time
• Breach of confidentiality
• Conflicts of interest
• Misuse of company resources
• Disparagement or harassment

The workplace ethics of social media call for the involvement of both management and workers in maintaining proper social media use through the establishment of policies. When creating these standards, among the more significant errors that companies can make is setting expectations that are impractical and so easily set aside. For example, a company that bans all employee personal use of social media in the workplace may do more harm than good when individuals attempt to use social media without them knowing. In this digital era, employees’ desire to use social networking sites can be for various reasons — to find the latest news, to connect and keep in touch with friends and family, or to make professional and business contacts. Organizations do not need to deprive employees of social media entirely, but rather establish clear and realistic policies that have a chance of being followed.